Deborah Sue Harris

Debbie is survived by her 101-year-old mother, Barbara Harris.

She was born in El Paso, Texas at William Beaumont Hospital on October 31 – Halloween – 1955. Her father was in the Army and they moved to Ft. Knox, Kentucky before she was six months old. After 2 years in Kentucky, they moved to France. They lived there till she was 5 years old – that caused her to learn to speak French at a very early age. When her father retired, they moved back to El Paso. She was 5 years old but got to start 1st grade. El Paso being on the border of the United States and Mexico most of the students spoke Spanish. So when she started school, she couldn't speak Spanish, so they took Debbie and 3 other students out of art class and taught them to speak Spanish – so they could talk with the other kids. She was fluent in Spanish, French, and English before she was 10 years old.

Debbie graduated from Burges High School in El Paso in 1973. She graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1977 with a degree in languages. After graduation, she worked in retail, a restaurant and a car repossession business. In 1980, she started to work for the Federal Government at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in El Paso. That office closed in 1982 so she moved to OPM in Little Rock, Arkansas. When that office closed in 1983, she returned to El Paso. She moved to San Antonio, Texas in April 1998. She moved to Hawaii in 2005 and returned to San Antonio in 2008 all the while working for the Federal Government until she retired a few years ago.

She remained in San Antonio until her death, August 2, 2016. Her mother was at her bedside.

She belonged to the Ladies Oriental Shrine and Daughters of the Nile and Toastmistress and Tejas Club (International Training in Communication) and Social Order of Beauceant and Order of the Eastern Star.

Debbie's hobbies included antiques, counted cross stitch and shopping.